J. Jance - Without Due Process

Which brought me abruptly to the question of why me? Out of the fifteen hundred or so police officers in the city of Seattle, why had the gunman shot at me? It seemed likely that fate alone had cast me as a potential victim since Simmons, the officer left guarding the front door, would have been far more likely to open it.

I remembered how we had sprinted down the sidewalk after the gunman’s car disappearing in the early-morning darkness. Almost all the law enforcement vehicles in the neighborhood had been gone by then, and the crime scene tape had not yet been strung across the gate. If it had been, Simmons, Deddens, or I would have stumbled over it in our race to the car. With that in mind, it was conceivable, then, that whoever did the shooting still believed that Ben Weston was the only possible person who would open his own door at that ungodly hour of the morning.

Which brought me full circle and right back to Ben being the target of two totally separate murder plots at the same time-unless, as Janice Morraine had suggested, the killer really was a cop who knew full well that Ben Weston was already dead, who understood exactly what was going on, who had an accurate count of who was still inside the house, and who could make a pretty good guess which of those was most likely to open the door.

Around and around I went, my thoughts chasing themselves like so many stupid dogs, endlessly pursuing their own tails.

Janice Morraine climbed into the van and started the engine while I jolted myself out of my reverie and settled into the rider’s seat. “Where to?” she asked. “The department?”

“Sure. That’s fine. I need to pick up a car.”

We drove in silence for a few blocks. “Sorry about tonight,” I said. “I was out of line.”

“We were all tired,” she returned. “When people are running on nerves like that, you can’t expect everyone to be on their very best behavior.”

“You may be right,” I said quietly. “Not about Big Al, but about the murderer being a cop out to kill other cops.”

“Forget it,” she said. “I’ve changed my mind about that, too.”

“You have?”

“We found six Flex-cufs in Ben Weston’s nightstand drawer and two in the kitchen. Maybe he was collecting them. God knows how many others he had stashed here and there around the house, but a cop wouldn’t have made all the mistakes.”

“What mistakes?”

“The footprints, for one thing. If we once find that pair of shoes, believe me, we won’t have any trouble matching them up. And the hair for another.”

“The hair stuck between Shiree Western’s fingers?”

She nodded. “That’s right. Any cop in his right mind would have noticed and had brains enough to get rid of those.”

“What about fingerprints?”

Janice shrugged. “Naturally, we found those all over the house, but until we have a record of all the family members’ prints, there’s no way to tell which ones, if any, are strays.”

By then we were pulling into the garage at the Public Safety Building. “Thanks for the ride,” I said.

“No problem.”

“And no matter what I may have said before, for a criminalist, you’re not bad.”

She grinned back at me, and I knew I’d been forgiven. “You’re not bad either,” she returned lightly, “for a boy.”

Touche.

I went upstairs long enough to pick up my messages and to receive a hug from Margie, my clerk, who seemed delighted that I hadn’t been shot to pieces. Then I hurried back down to the garage, checked out a car, and went home.

It was only eight o’clock. I could smell the coffee and bacon as soon as the elevator door opened on the twenty-fifth floor. Obviously, Ralph Ames was making himself at home. I don’t know what kind of metabolism the man has, but he eats like a horse and never seems to have a problem with his weight. It probably has something to do with swimming daily laps at his pool there in Scottsdale.

“Hey, you’re just in time for breakfast. Want some?”

“No time. I came home to grab a shower and change clothes. Pour me a cup of coffee and let it cool. I’ll be out in a minute.”

By the time I got back out to the dining room, Ralph handed me a message from Carl Johnson. “Rough night?” Ames asked.

I knew from looking in the mirror that I had dark circles under my eyes. “Pretty rough, all right,” I said. “Five people dead and I ended up having someone take a potshot at me before the evening was over.”

“You’re in a tough line of work,” Ames said. “Sure you won’t try some eggs?”

The food smelled wonderful and I was famished. I allowed myself to be persuaded.

“Try some of the salsa on your eggs,” Ames suggested. “It’s the real McCoy, straight from Phoenix. I brought it up special.”

I tried a daub of the green salsa on my eggs and it instantly cleared every sinus cavity in my head. I bolted my food, toast and all, and pushed my chair away from the table.

“Where to this time?” Ames asked.

“I’ve got to do a next-of-kin notification. In feet, I should be on my way right this very minute.”

I was headed out the door when the phone rang. Expecting new marching orders from Watty or Captain Powell, I picked it up. Instead, it was Curtis Bell, a guy I knew vaguely from the department, who, now that he was moonlighting as a life insurance salesman, was renowned throughout Seattle PD as an A-number-one pest. He had been hounding me for an appointment for months.

Without allowing me a word in edgewise, he administered the usual appointment-getting canned speech about when could we get together to talk over some ideas that had proved helpful to other officers like myself. Personally, I liked it better back in the old days when moonlighting cops mostly worked as security guards. Security guards usually don’t try to sell products or services to their friends. And I remembered the prospecting lessons from my old Fuller Brush days-call everyone you know and ask for an appointment. But I also know what it’s like to be a young cop and not make enough money to cover all the bases. I understood what Curtis Bell was trying to do and why he was having to do it.

I tried to be polite. “Look, Curtis, I appreciate your thinking about me, but I’m working a case. I’m real busy right now. In fact, I was just on my way out the door.”

“That’s all right,” he said. “My schedule’s flexible. Are mornings or afternoons better for you, or how about early evening, right after work?”

“Really, none of the above.”

I kept saying no, and he kept not listening. After being up working around the clock, the very last thing I needed would be to spend the evening with some boring life insurance puke. I took one more stab at getting rid of him.

“Curtis,” I told him as nicely as I could manage. “I’m financially set. I’m divorced and my kids are grown. Why the hell do I need life insurance anyway?”

“That’s exactly what I wanted to talk to you about,” Curtis returned. “Would tomorrow night be better?”

He had worn me down. The customary ten no’s hadn’t worked. Sooner or later, he and I were going to talk insurance. “Tell you what, Curtis, I’ll get back to you on this. Right now, I’ve got to go.”

I put down the phone and turned around only to find Ralph Ames studying me with a puzzled expression on his face. “What was that all about?” he asked.

“One of the guys from the department who’s got a second job selling life insurance. I don’t know why, but he thinks I’m a likely prospect.”

“Maybe you are,” Ames said thoughtfully. “What company is he with?”

“Beats me. How the hell should I know? And anyway, I don’t need any life insurance.”

“Wait a minute,” Ralph said. “You’re thinking about leaving the department, and that means you’ll be walking away from a whole lot of fringe benefits. There may be some things about insurance that we’ll want to consider. My main worry would be about a rating.”